New Ham radio license in hand and reading up on this activity called SOTA or Summits on the Air where you combine the outdoors (Mountain Tops) with Ham Radio, sounds like fun and how hard could it be?
Learned a lot about preparation, the radio and antennas during this first attempt at SOTA.
To start, don't always trust the internet as we took the wrong trail up. After hours of hiking found ourselves way short of the peak with no access. The area was very rugged and potentially dangerous (as much of Arizona is) also a beautiful location with views I had never seen before. Nice quality time with family, just not great radio today.
My son KI7LLD made a nice 2m trip into the Phoenix area with a roll up antenna, as well as a S2S contact in Tucson. I struggled with the new radio and fancy antenna. We will be back once it cools down to attempt this peak again.
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